WEEK 4: MMLP vs Scar - 5-2 SCAR WINS

[Inno]

GUERRILLA WRITING LEAGUE

@MMLP @Scar


Max line: 30

Min: 10

Check in: 48 hours after thread post

Due date: April 16, 2020 EST

GOODLUCK!

[Scar]

check

[MMLP]

Good luck, sir

[MMLP]

You'll need a walkthrough right into my mind
I speak before you as a victim of crime.
Just a kid in his prime who laughed at the trolls.
In simpler times of practical jokes.
Where pranks were exposed and urban legends debunked.
Passed off as hoaxes, with their efforts rebuffed,
with the exception of one I just couldn't forget,
they mentioned it once and it stuck in my head.
His hunt for revenge felt like a swarm of bees.
Would wake up in a sweat, like the nights were calling me.
Those times its all I’d read as I studied some more,
made his plight that more believable, I was shook to the core.
There’s like a dozen reports but no one seemed to care,
just a couple of stories, my folks weren’t even scared.
Couldn’t focus in my chair as my mind was clouded.
Openly aware of all my surroundings
Found it quite astounding in my petty state of mind.
Trying doubting myself who’s left to pay the price.
Then the fatal night we all crashed at my house,
some friends would stay behind, just hanging around.
Bored, sat in the lounge when I was bludgeoned by the girls.
The harassment resounding, they pushed me to the hill.
Finally mustering the will as my audience had hoped,
I struggled keeping still but stood tall in desperate hope,
they'd all just it let go and draw a line in the sand.
To not perform the ceremony was only inciting their wrath.
So I decided I had to man up and switch.
With my eyes on the task, I ran to the sink
in a battle of wits, just to the attain the facts
gazed at the man in the mirror, everyone was laughing at
“Candyman,” I said it bitterly
“… Candyman,” thinking lets end the mystery”
“Candyman,” “Candyman,” “Candyman”.... And the rest is history

[Scar]

“The Girl Who Cried….”

Firle
She retreated to her familiar place to meet a familiar face.
It calmed her. The bronze curtain stopped the villains in place
“Am I silly?” She waited for a response. A long pause indicating..
Something was wrong. Odd, she’s not one to NOT know what to say
“Are you ok?” Still nothing. Confused, she opened to curtains “the deluge of the day,
You know, I’m glad I’m not amongst them. My own room is ok”
A quarter turn, “wouldn’t you say? Oh god, Adeline, stop the charade?!”
Her blouse, a grayish, earthy tone, peppered with day-old coffee stains
She observed the lowly-hung scalloped neckline, “it gets lower every year.
Leonard bought me it on our second date. We went boating near the pier.
It was too much. You know me, Adeline, I’m not much for extravagance”
“Tell me something, Virginia, why do you tolerate this man, again?”
She smiled. “I’m afraid you’ve gravely miscalculated our dynamic.
Who is really tolerating whom, Addy? That there is your answer.
Oh nice of you to speak again, by the way. You’ve been quite unbearable”
“I’m sorry for my absence but there are things I just can’t share with you”
She stared at her for a few moments. There’s an aesthetic to a women’s jawline
The contour, the climb; ebb and flow, an ascending and descending soft cline ..

Dinner was a course of haddock and parsley with an offering of wine
Beside her, a wall portrait of her and Leonard courting a smile

“That was at the River Ouse. I miss the music and boats”
“We’ll visit soon. Until then, It’s nice to have a room of our own.”

A.V.Woolf
01/25/1888 - 03/28/1941

[Universe]

Interesting contrast of styles here... let's break it down.

MMLP - Alright I knew there was a twist coming and I got one again. It didn't quite have the impact as your last two weeks though. I know OF Candyman, but if it wasnt for that new Jordan Peele produced trailer this wouldn''t have been effective at all for me. But again, that's just personal preference. I'm beginning to see the technical deficiencies Adverse has been talking about as well... multi's lacking, some awkward phrasing. I've been blind to them over the last 2 weeks because of how impactful your stories were, but they unfortunately glared brightly here. I still enjoyed this piece, MMLP, your style is one of a kind and you definitely have a niche in this topical world, but this was just a stumble to me. Not bad, just didn't really stand out. I'm still a fan though bro... keep the twists coming.

Scar - Wow... okay. A LOT to digest here. Aesthetically this is another amazing piece of art from you... the time you put into these pieces is insane and the presentation is something to behold. The problem with this particular verse is it's so abstract and is about an author that many people have MAYBE heard of (Virginia Woolfe aka Adeline), but probably haven't had any experience with. I myself had to read this three times to digest everything (and I'm an English major). A Room of One's Own is a famous essay by V.W. but I highly doubt people at netcees will know about it lol. Anyway, this only requires a personal opinion so let's continue... I really liked the play on the title, "The Girl Who Cried..." really hits home after you finish and know what and who it's about. But... maybe I'm a bit rusty but I failed to really see the correlation between the picture and the topic though.. I mean, I see the intention but I had to REALLY look into this quite deep to understand everything. (Maybe you can PM me about your thought process behind this as I AM interested..) I know V.W. drowned herself, and looking at the pic again, it does resemble maybe a bloated blue corpse, if that's what you were going for... I can see that now, actually. I don't know, I think I'm sort of in love with this piece lol.

So, I gotta go with what resonates with me the most. MMLP's verse was like a short little thriller against Scar's long, carefully crafted drama... I can see other people going for the thriller but for me... I appreciate the time it takes to accomplish what Scar did the most. It's just so polarizing.

Vote - Scar

[Vulgar]

MMLP - The writing was good. The rhyming was a highlight in some places. The twist wasn't really a 'gotcha!' moment but had some kind of typical impact for the Candyman horror genre. The wording, bludgeoning, and harassment, didn't feel accurate for that passage of the story. It was a bit risky ending on a phrase like "the rest is history." I didn't feel like Candyman as a folklore item had its time to shine. It was the destination of the story, but not the 'soul' of the story, suggesting you were short on time or went for something more quick and sharp.

Scar - THis was interesting. A woman having a dialogue of herself while mourning a lost partner? I'm not familiar with Virginia Woolf's life story. It provided some intrigue as there's not much insight into the relationship of Leonard and Virginia. Felt like the verse could've been at least twice as long to give more on the story. Didn't realy feel like a complete package.

I'm voting for Scar because the verse had some more 'life' to it and created characters who spoke and were revealing something.

Thanks for the reads guys, I don't mean to be overly critical, just how I saw things.

[Diablo]

MMLP - From a technical standpoint there’s a lot to like about this one, in as much as the rhyme scheme deployed and the multi syllable rhyming, the carry-overs, the internal rhymes etc - there’s a lot going on here, and coupling that degree of difficulty along with telling a story and maintaining an implied rhythmic cadence is way harder to do than it looks. I have to give kudos on that here as it shouldn’t be overlooked. Now, that said, I also enjoyed your take on this topic - partly because I’m a horror fan, but also because it’s something I also did as a child/early teen. I did feel it could have used more in the way of character development, something to anchor the verse, maybe writing it from the third person perspective rather than first person may have suited this more. Towards the mid-section I thought there was a great opportunity to layer on the emotion, in particular around this:

Where pranks were exposed and urban legends debunked.
Passed off as hoaxes, with their efforts rebuffed,
with the exception of one I just couldn't forget,
they mentioned it once and it stuck in my head.

I think a great follow-up would have been the hair on your arms standing up, goosebumps on your skin, your heart racing, eyes wide with fear etc to add a layer of visual imagery and suspense to proceedings, you know?

The other thing worth noting is that conflict drives great stories. If you had the lead character here at some sort of crossroads, maybe Candyman was his best friend/a murderer and so he was unsure what to do - report him to the authorities, or help keep his identity secret - that could have added another layer of conflict to the story and opened up a different avenue to explore. Just something to think about going forward is all.

Scar - I think you’ve improved since your last foray over here, some of the wording really shines form an imagery standpoint (I liked the Bronze Curtain description off rip - but who the fuck buys “bronze” curtains in 2020, though?! LOL) I’m familiar with Virginia Woolf, but I’m in the same boat as Vulgar as to not really knowing enough about her backstory to probably appreciate this the way you do. The concept at its heart is intriguing, the execution perhaps needed some tinkering for me though. Spoken dialogue in these things is difficult to pull off, especially when you’re also trying to rhyme-out that spoken conversation and striking a balance between the technical aspect and keeping the dialogue sounding natural is very, very difficult to achieve. I would generally avoid anything with long drawn out passages of spoken dialogue and interaction between characters in the storytelling format. Instead what you want to put stock into is character development - work on showing the reader who that character is, why they’re like that, and how they’re flawed, other it risks becoming a little “She did this,” or “He did that,” and without the reader being invested into the character - they also aren’t invested in what happens to them, and as much as you then try to bring about something emotional (usually in the final third of a verse) it loses some of the impact (by some I mean, a LOT!). It’s tricky to do, don’t get me wrong, and the 30 line limit doesn’t allow much room for manoeuvre in one sense because you don’t want to waste too much of your allowance on the backstory to not have anything left for the story - but at the same time, you don’t want to do the opposite and have a storyline that doesn’t get the reader invested in what happens come the end. It’s hard, I know, but I think a larger line limit would have suited you much better with this idea and given you the room to fully develop the character first.

Anyway, this is a clash of two opposing styles somewhat, that’s what it came down to to me. MMLP with the short lines and flow (which I myself use) plus the heavier technical element to his work, against the elongated lines of Scar with a significantly greater visual imagery but maybe not the calibre of mechanics on display I’m accustomed to seeing from his opponent. I can see people going one way or the other, but I’ll go with MMLP in a close one. Great battle guys!

Keep those pens moving!

[Adverse]

Like what has been previously stated by multiple others i really like the contrast of styles here. Both referenced various forms of pop culture but that's where the similarities ended tbh. I'm not too familiar with either piece's source (more so Candyman but just kind of in a general plot synopsis way?) So both of these verses had me engaged and reading until the end.

MMLP - I really like the way you incorporate pop culture into your pieces. It's awesome that you can look at any of these topics and find a correlation to another media source (Mortal Kombat, Candyman, Steve Austin etc) but at the same time it's becoming kind of stagnant in my eyes? Like You're painting yourself into a box with every week you follow the same formula. I really want to see you just do something extremely off the wall in the coming weeks because i know you're a fantastic writer and i want to see you challenge yourself to create something bigger than rewriting movies/games etc. Good verse though and very technically sound.

Scar - This was an awesome piece even in the eyes of somebody not familiar with the source material. I think you brought the story to life the way that you told it. And i like how you (and MMLP did this as well) took a story and made it your own. You did it well enough where i wouldn't have guessed this was based on a famous work. I liked the setting, imagery was cool (bronze curtain, sprinkled with yesterday's coffee stains etc.) Was a really fun verse to read start to finish. You told it well, the closer didn't resonate much with me but as has been stated that wasn't really the point of it.

When the smoke settles, this was a great matchup didn't feel like it was one-sided at all both had different stuff i liked but overall I think I'll vote Scar as he kept me more engaged and i just found more enjoyment in his. MMLP is right there every week on either side and i think a switch in content would push him to some more wins but that's just my opinion. Good bout!

V/Scar

[Ender]

MMLP
I enjoyed reading a piece that was so clearly on the storytelling side, rather than the poetic. That may put a ceiling on how well you can do in a league like this, where the top end of the league is made up of writers who use heavily poetic language, but personally I'm predisposed to enjoy storytellers rather than poets. However, this does put a lot of pressure on your story, because you generally don't have the technical aspects (multis, flow, imagery) to fall back on if voters fail to connect with your story. I'm also a fan of twist endings in general. However I didn't really connect with this piece. The story did not have enough action for my taste, nor was there enough misdirection for the twist to have the impact it needed. I do like your style though, so I'm looking forward to your next piece.

Scar
I liked this a lot. I found it a little obscure, but there was real deeper meaning here, not simply a flexing of vocabulary. I enjoyed how much you trusted your readers to either understand your references to Virginia Woolf's life, or Google it. I thought it was clever to represent her suspected mental disorders as a split personality, and name one side of the personality Virginia and the other side Adeline. The foreshadowing of visiting the River Ouse soon was nice. I didn't have any real problems with this. I think it's the best piece I've read so far this week.

A real clash of styles here, but I felt like I connected more with Scar's piece. The content intrigued me and it was well written.

Vote - Scar

[dead man]

MMLP, you know i fuck with this verse, cause Candyman takes place in my city and it was always something i watched when it came on as a kid. it took me a couple reads to digest exactly where this was coming from and where it turned into a ceremony. at first i thought they had dragged you out into the forest for a murder-sacrifice ceremony or something. idk. your style is dialed in, similar to Lars in a way, but more matter-of-fact if that makes sense. rhythmically clean and simple, steady pacing, the whole style is kind of "vanilla" and safe in practice but dependable nonetheless. yeah, idk i'm a huge fan of Candyman so maybe i'm bias but the twist was actually awesome to me. i can honestly say i would not have thought of it without some real long meditation on the pic. very cool.

SCAR gives us a character study. it felt bi-polar and awkward, but certainly in the way you intended. some of the middle-age posh vocabulary got a bit clunky and strange at points, as did your language to suit the tone. there was not much subtlety to this device. it almost felt like a super american dude putting on a mustache and a poor british accent. but it didn't feel especially out of place with your dialogue. the story wasn't really, fleshed out in any revealing way. we got senses of who the main character was, a glimpse into her past and her dynamic with.... herself in the mirror? i wasn't exactly clear what this represented. lady in the looking glass? some sort of critique on materialism through this fancy woman and her mirror? i dont really know the story that well, only the motifs or whatever. if this was a spin on that, its definitely a commendable angle to take. ambitious and probably overestimating it's audience, but not for any fault of the verse. its not inaccessible, overall, but probably a bit more subtle and specific than it meant to be. the writing is solid, for sure, and the font adjustments actually may have aided the voice, which is something i'd usually always condemn for no good reason, but you pulled it off here. again, was not big on some of the folky era-specific word choices but i get it. and it was engaging enough to earn you a very, very close 2nd place.

i almost feel like i should be voting for Scar here, because his verse gave us so much more to think about and discuss. if the league had a different format, and he could give us an expanded work and not a glimpse into a chapter of something that felt much grander in scope, it would probably lend itself far better to his take on the topic. MMLP gave us something complete, concise, with a well-stated "twist" ending that made it all come together. i don't normally go for "neatly wrapped package" in a situation like this, but MMLP won it out for me here.

voting for MMLP.

[Inno]

mmlp this was another welcomed twist this week. another clever take on the topic my friend def get some points for that. the wording was smooth and the story was well told. you brought that twist ending just at the right time. although I gotta say I didn't enjoy the last 3-4 lines. I thought they could of been more impactful tbh. overall it was a dope verse that was written with good precision.

scar ill be honest I don't Virginia wolf so the reference gets lost on me. as far as the content goes. I thought this was dope as far as the wording and imagery. you where able to paint a dope scene that I could picture in my head. I'm assuming she's talking to her self in the mirror and thinking she's getting responses from other people. nicely done man. your verse had steam from the get which will probably be the deciding factor.

I thought mmlps verse took a bit to get started where as scar had it going from the jump. could be a toss up if you ask me but this time it lands on scar.

[Inno]

5-2 scar wins